Gracias, the Thanksgiving Turkey
By: Joy Cowley
One day, Miguel receives a package from his father, who is a trucker that drives all across America. When the boy opens his present, he finds a turkey that his dad sent him to fatten before Thanksgiving. Miguel names the turkey Gracias, and takes him home. He and the turkey become great friends, and he soon realizes that it would not be fair to eat her on Thanksgiving after all the adventures and trouble that the two had encountered. One day, Miguel forgot the put Gracias in her cage before going to church. The turkey follows them and interrupts Padre Jaime's prayer. The Father then blessed Gracias. The family decided that it would not be right to cook and eat a blessed turkey. Therefore, that year at Thanksgiving dinner, the family ate a chicken!
I believe that the students in my future classroom would really enjoy this story. It would be a great read aloud to do before the Thanksgiving break. The story uses simple Spanish words and phrases, to blend the culture into the reading. I would take time to review the Spanish terms with my students, as read the story, and have them use the context clues to determine the meaning of the word. After reading the story, the students would have a creative writing assignment. The prompt would be:
Imagine that you get a large box in the mail. When you looked in it you saw an animal that was sent to you from a relative. What animal was it? Write an imaginative story detailing the adventures and troubles that you and your new pet experienced.
I would encourage them to be very creative with this assignment, and to think beyond animals that make typical pets (such as dogs, cats, hamsters, birds). They would also be responsible for drawing a picture of themselves with their new pets, and then presenting their illustrations and stories with the class.
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